Portadown, Northern Ireland
Joined October 2020
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The county player who didn’t get a message from Aoife Kennedy
#gaacatfish
Cahal MacGafraidh retweeted
THE CONTINUING DECLINE AND DISREPUTE OF LOCAL POLITICAL MEDIA.
The disproportionate platform given here to the continuing psychodrama within political Unionism by BBCNI, UTV & certain sections of the printed press is now at alarming levels.
Serious questions need to be asked from Nationalist political representatives, particularly about BBCNI who are funded by taxpayers to the tune of £59 million per year.
The framing of political discussions by BBCNI, is not remotely proportionate or reflective of the wider community here in the North of Ireland.
Particularly in terms of their highest paid broadcaster whose standard of programming is now borderline disgraceful...
The largest Political Party here is NOT any of the three Unionist Parties, who receive highlighted and disproprtionate coverage every day on the local airwaves.
The largest Political Party here is an Irish Republican Party with a massive mandate, which may increase still further in the next Assembly Election.
Today's latest Lucid Talk Poll has just revealed that 98% of Sinn Fein & SDLP voters believe that Michelle O'Neill was correct to block the Garvaghy Road last month.
Was that significant public opinion reflected in any way whatsoever by our local media outlets in the past month?
The answer is a resounding NO...
Instead, regular political programming here has wilfully allowed those politicians to be labelled as "lawbreakers" even though nobody has yet been charged with any offence, let alone convicted.
Unionist politicians from the DUP, TUV & also Jon Burrows from the UUP, have been given free reign to paint a picture which is heavily contested by at least half of the electorate here.
The situation has declined alarmingly in the past number of months & the large electorate from a Nationalist background here deserve equality of coverage, particularly from a taxpayer funded broadcaster.
HENRY JOY.
@bbcni @UTVNews @bbcradioulster @bbcnewsline @BBCgmu @PaulClark_UTV @StephenNolan @sinnfeinireland @SDLPlive @duponline @uuponline @TUVonline
Cahal MacGafraidh retweeted
Clarity: For those who are saying that Richill AFC didn't receive the £30,000.
I've never reported they did. Look closer.
I've reported the Department/Minister wanted/wants to allocate the funding. That is factual. That is in documents.
You see, I found this information early on in the process. I've since highlighted it extensively. People have been embarrassed.
I'd take more pride in stopping what is alleged to be the misuse of public funds — by giving it to a football team as schools crumble — than reporting after the deed had been done. Though it would still be important to expose after the fact if money was allocated.
You'll also note that at no stage since July (when I first approached the department for comment) has the Minister or his department denied that their desire was to allocate this funding. It has taken Richill months to issue a statement. They've admitted the approach was made but say no money was allocated.
Though another suggestion was to allocate the money via a local school.
That has not been ruled out.
The EA spoke of reviewing arrangements and said “any agreed payment would be based on usage”.
In other words
Keep them dirty fenians out of office
⁉️NEW: @uuponline says it is "willing to take part in serious, constructive discussions, but they need purpose and discretion."
🗣Party leader @JonBurrowsMLA said: "A phone call minutes before a public letter is published is no substitute for proper engagement."
The statement follows calls for 'unionist cooperation' from @duponline MLA @JBuckleyMLA.
Full statement below.
Cahal MacGafraidh retweeted
Strikers like Suárez and Lewandowski never won the Ballon d’Or, but a lesser striker like Harry Kane wants to win it because he’s scoring goals in the Bundesliga?
Mbappé, Yamal, and Olise should all be ahead of him today. If Kane wins this Ballon d’Or, it would be one of the biggest injustices in the award’s history.
Tonight hints at Kane winning the Ballon Dor. First time in 70 years the ceremony has ever left France. The Last time it was presented outside France an English player won it.
It went to The first-ever winner of the Ballon d'Or in 1956 Sir Stanley Matthews
Even though it wasn’t a big ceremony, Matthews was presented his trophy at a tiny, informal town hall gathering in Blackpool
Cahal MacGafraidh retweeted
The full ending as Edendork win the Tyrone SFC for the first time ever thanks to Niall Morgan’s two-point free three minutes into stoppage time.
Not too many occasions down the years where such a big underdog wins the replay. Incredible success story.
📹 Tyrone GAA / @MacAV_NI
👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
5-star commentary from Michael McKernan on todays @StormontSources podcast.
His evisceration of @StephenNolan and his @BBCNolan show in this clip, is a thing of beauty.
Earlier in the podcast he also destroys the Bryson/Lockhart strategy. Cairns didn't know where to look.
Yet another pre recorded unionist interview to kickstart @StephenNolan today
Cahal MacGafraidh retweeted
Jeffrey Donaldson is getting sentenced for horrific sex abuse & big Gav says look, look there is a rumour that themuns had guns, bombs & petrol bombs all aided & abetted by the BBC as they allowed him to spread these unfounded allegations.We see it for what it is, deflection!
Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant is to ban the #Drumcree parade.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw23…
Cahal MacGafraidh retweeted
Cry harder Blackheart. You have a cheek to talk about your child who can be shielded from any so called abuse. The young catholic mother and her child targeted by sectarian thugs in her own home didn't concern you. You supported the thugs. Hypocrite
Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart has said abuse she received yesterday outside Belfast High Court was “sinister” and described the impact on her young son who “hears” and “sees” the abuse. belfasttelegraph.co.uk/area/…
Cahal MacGafraidh retweeted
All is quiet on the Garvaghy Road tonight. Great crowd here doing the night watch. Our spirit is high.
No going back. 🇮🇪
Please repost and show your support for the residents of Garvaghy Road.
Genuine question here
The amount of people who have turned out for the local community, length and breadth of Ireland.
Big names, small names and unknown
Has anybody apart from the usual cartel of Bryson, Lockhart and Allister showed support for the OO??
Cahal MacGafraidh retweeted
I have four problems with your four “problems”:
1. “Mob rule.”
Interesting how quickly peaceful nationalist resistance becomes a “mob” when nationalists refuse to acquiesce. Thousands of local residents and supporters opposed an exceptionally contentious parade through their community. You can condemn an unlawful blockade without pretending the people involved somehow cease to have legitimate political or cultural concerns.
2. “SF/SDLP rabble rousing.”
Nationalist politicians standing alongside a nationalist community isn’t inherently “rabble rousing”. Sinn Féin and SDLP representatives were there publicly; meanwhile, on the other side, Carla Lockhart and Jamie Bryson addressed a loyalist gathering supporting the Orange Order’s position, pushing the “law”, the law
From Jamie Bryson, jeysus🤦♂️
Curiously, apparently only one side counts as inflammatory political mobilisation.
3. “They sang Provo songs, therefore their trauma is hypocritical.”
That’s simply an Irrelevance. You can condemn offensive or provocative songs without pretending that singing them retrospectively erases people’s experiences of Drumcree. One resident who grew up through the original dispute described having a teenage son now the same age he was then.
4. “People like you defending it.”
No. I’m defending something you apparently find much harder to accept, equality. It doesn’t seem like it to you, but it is for the nationalist community.
The Orange tradition has rights.
Nationalists have rights.
Unionists have a political voice.
Nationalists have a political voice.
And neither community has an automatic entitlement to get its own way.
That’s what has changed in NI
For generations, “No Surrender” politics could treat nationalist objections as something to be overcome rather than something requiring accommodation. Now a nationalist community can say NO, and suddenly we’re hearing about “mob rule”, persecution and the collapse of Stormont.
And here’s the hypocrisy you keep avoiding, the Orange Order was presented with a proposal during negotiations, yet its spokesman’s publicly reported position was that “nothing else will do” except walking Garvaghy Road.
So perhaps ask yourself who is actually refusing to give an inch.
Your neighbour acquiring an equal voice isn’t your community being oppressed.
And your neighbour being able to tell you NO isn’t supremacy.
It’s the uncomfortable reality of no longer having the power to tell them YES, whether you like it or not.